Request: if you’re a marginalized person, tell Trump here that you will not be silenced, and share what I said below.

President-Elect: My name is Alexandra Penland, and I am 25 years old. I have known my significant other for 14 years, which at my age is a significant chunk of my life: we met online when we were 11, grew up 1,000 miles apart, and moved in together once we started dating at age 18. She’s my best friend in the world. Neither of us fully identify as lesbians, but we’re in a lesbian relationship and it’s not going anywhere any time soon.

The night you were elected, we held each other and cried. President-Elect, I am aware that you personally have not made any outright attacks on our people, but your choice of vice president indicates that you have nothing against people who see people like myself and my soulmate as sins rather than love stories. You do not see us as people worth protecting. No amount of holding Pride flags and empty words can change that choice.

If you want to make America great, we need concrete assurance that you won’t take away our right to be human.

This means enforcing our rights to get married, to have legal physical relationships, to hold down any job without fear of being fired for our sexualities, and–most importantly–to not be harassed, attacked, or even killed simply for existing.

I am also an educator. The number of (legal, first-generation, second-generation, American) children of color who are terrified of your election to this position is uncalled-for. I have had to comfort first-graders with the assurance that they are safe in their homes.

This has been false comfort, President-Elect.

Your xenophobic, racist remarks have had real effect on people. Perhaps you’re not the type of man who would attack children of color in the street (although your comments suggest otherwise–please, prove me wrong in that deduction), but there are white, Christian Americans who use your comments as an excuse to do so. I have heard high school students called racial slurs, and I have heard elementary-age students tell fellow Americans that they do not belong here.

If you want to make America great, tell your followers this is unacceptable. That America comes in all colors. That people of color are just as American as they are, and no amount of cruelty is acceptable. That you are not condoning outright racism.
While you’re at it, denounce the KKK. This should not be something I need to tell you. They are a hateful, horrific group with a bloody history, and you need to make it clear that they do not represent our country.

I am also a woman.

If you want to make America great, bite the bullet and let your accusers speak. Take their comments with dignity and grace, do not beat them down, and go to court. Let America decide whether or not your choices were legal and moral. Do not continue to bully us, or treat us like objects. We are human. We are equals. Frankly, from the man I’ve seen on television this past year, we are your betters.

If you want to make America great, you need to be a great man. A great man does not deprive people of hope, make children cry, or bully victims. Right now, you are not a great man.

I’m disappointed. I’m heartbroken. I feel like I woke up in a time travel story, and we failed to stop the Bad Timeline from taking place. It feels like the way-too-dark season finale of American Politics, 8 Eastern /7 Central on Fox.

Not because Hillary lost, although I liked her as a candidate. Not even because Trump won, although considering his stance on climate change that scares the shit out of me too. I’m hurt because the “minority” community (immigrants, POC, LGBT, women) just got a huge slap in the face.

Imagine this: you’re 17 years old. Back in high school. Two people are running for class president this year: a somewhat-bitchy cheerleader whose mom is on the PTA and may or may not have had sex behind the football field with some less-than-savory folks, and a rich guy whose entire platform is based on bullying you.

The cheerleader’s kind of annoying. Nobody really likes her. But the rich kid’s talking to entire tables full of people about how you–you as a human being— are the cause of all the problems in the school. He’s talking about how much you deserve to get beaten up, raped, how you should be constantly grovelling for everyone else to accept you. He spends a disproportionate amount of time telling people how awful a human being you are and how you don’t deserve happiness in your life.

And he’s done this before. You know he’s hurt people. You know he’s followed through on these threats, on a personal level, because he brags about it.

Feels personal, right? And dangerous?

So imagine how personal it feels when people tell you they’re voting for him because “well the cheerleader’s worse.” The cheerleader isn’t personally attacking you. She may not be good, but she’s not telling you to your face that you’re less than human. She’s not actively encouraging people to hurt you–in fact, she’s encouraging people to be nice to you, even though they write it off as “she’s trying to be PC”.

And then the school overwhelmingly votes for him, for reasons totally unrelated to how he treats you. Most of them don’t care about what he’s said about you at all, actually. Some are so upset about other things that they write in votes, or don’t vote at all, rather than try to help you.

What message does that send, when they don’t care? How would you, as an individual, feel if the entire school voted for someone who openly bullied you, and told you to shut up and stop whining about how you’re treated?

This is a pretty transparent metaphor, but it’s easier to understand on a smaller level: voting for a bully tells the bully it’s okay to be a jackass. Protest voting tells the victim that their life is worth less than what you’re protesting.

Zoom out.

Actions speak louder than words. This is what my country told me.

On Tuesday, 59,704,886 people told me that they think I am less than human. 6,095, 128 people told me that my life was worth less than their disillusionment through protest voting. 44% of the country didn’t vote at all.

Yes, I understand that #notalltrumpsupporters hate women and LGBT people and people of color, but their vote says that hating us is okay. That it’s presidential behavior. Yes, I understand protest votes were valid: I wanted Bernie too, and I hate this system too, I get it. But there are so many more effective ways to do that. Get involved in local politics. By protesting now, in something so crucial, you voted against yourself. You may as well have voted for Trump: see point #1.

It’s personal, guys.

We’re upset. We’re hurt. We know it wasn’t personal for you, we get that. It was personal to us, and you didn’t care. You don’t give a shit about us, so stop telling us to calm down and take it. A country divided against itself cannot stand.

So stop dividing the fucking country, because we’re not going to stand around and take the abuse.

I’m not going to shut up.

]]>https://alexpenland.wordpress.com/2016/11/10/im-not-going-to-shut-up/feed/1abpenlandMore Thoughts To Comehttps://alexpenland.wordpress.com/2016/10/26/more-thoughts-to-come/
https://alexpenland.wordpress.com/2016/10/26/more-thoughts-to-come/#respondWed, 26 Oct 2016 17:30:48 +0000http://alexpenland.wordpress.com/?p=1313October is one of my favorite months. I love the cool weather, I love the ramp-up to NaNoWriMo (more info on that at a later point), I love Halloween. Fall is my season.

But it also marks a number of anniversaries for me. Two years ago, my entire nuclear family dissolved out from under me. Things are better now, my parents are finding happiness and I’m healing over a lot of relationship wounds that I’ve been carrying since I was seven.

One year ago, my grandfather passed away. I travelled 1200 miles in 12 hours to be with my family, and made it to his hospital room just in time. It was an intense experience, but not a negative one. I’d do anything to have my story end as well as his did. I love him a great deal, and it hurt. But I wouldn’t change a moment of the experience.

October, my favorite month, makes me think about endings and rebirth. So for this first October post, I’m going to write about my first experience with death. Warning: this is another major bummer of a post. But it’s important, and it’s on my mind, so here goes.

Her name was Sarah Foster, and I was eight years old.This is a story I’ve told a thousand times. Some of the data may be wrong: these are memories from when I was five to seven years old, and bits of information I’ve gleaned over the years.

In a hopefully-rare stroke of pretentiousness, I consider Sarah my muse: she’s the reason I started writing, and her lasting influence winds up in the background of every word I put on paper. I published a semi-fictionalized version of this story in high school, and she’s the inspiration for the semi-fictional novel I started for NaNo last year.

Sarah Foster was a sweet, smart kid. She was blonde and sunny and silly. She was goofy. She was strongly, intensely creative: one of my strongest memories of her is her surprisingly on-point wordplay. I met this kid in kindergarten, and she had a sling around her arm. My mom asked her if she’d hurt her arm, and she replied, brightly, that she was fixing her arm. That was her sense of humor.

This was why we were close. In a world of conversation that consisted of making weird noises and repeating things ad nauseam, Sarah and I could actually talk. Our inside jokes were clever, or at least clever for that age: she could talk circles around me when she wanted to. I was young beyond clear memory, but I remember that.

She died when I was seven, in early July.

Sarah had a heart condition. It was serious, and it was a medical miracle that she made it to seven years old. She died at summer camp, playing a game with another friend, and I wasn’t there. My mom got the phone call and told me she had died, and I buried myself in a book. My memory, already fuzzy, very specifically blanks out after the words “Sarah Foster died,”and returns at the funeral, with my fingers playing along the smooth wood of the pews.

This was my first experience with death. My best friend was there, and then she was gone, and life kept happening around me. My other best friend moved away that summer. I went into second grade, with a teacher that just did not understand me. The school did nothing, even though Sarah’s mom worked there, and the other students in my class didn’t really understand what had just happened.

Death is a crucible.

When my grandfather died last year, I was surprised at not being sad. I was more glad to have known my grandfather than sad to have lost him, and I wasn’t sure if that made me a bad person or what. It wasn’t a negative experience: just big, and strange. I could feel myself changing, the old skin of my personality sloughing away and revealing this new, naked, raw person underneath.

I don’t remember that happening when I was seven. I can see where it did, though, just by looking at the aftermath.

I had friends after that. Some of whom I’m still in contact with, and pretty close to. But there was a part of me, for a really long time, that sheltered a deep-seated mistrust of those relationships. I loved them. I cared about them. But it took me a very long time to realize that they loved me, and that none of them were going to leave or die.

I went to school after that. Hell, I still work in schools. But my school was no longer a safe place: they hadn’t protected me, and they hadn’t protected Sarah, and they did nothing to help me through the experience. I promptly decided life was too short to spend following someone else’s agenda, and in second grade decided I had better things to do. This is a decision I stand by wholeheartedly.

I had family after that. I am ridiculously close to my parents, and I really couldn’t have asked for a better mom and dad. They are amazing people who did an amazing job raising me. But they were in mourning too, and they didn’t know how to handle it. In my grief, I was alone.

I learned to handle grief. I learned to handle the temporary nature of love. The crucible made me stronger. But I’m still learning how to have healthy friendships: it took me until college to realize that it’s okay for people to care about me, and it took me until this year to understand I don’t need to care about the people who don’t.

I’m lucky. And I’m only growing luckier with time. I’m glad to have known those who passed: I’m excited to be close to those I still have with me.

And I’m grateful for those I’ve known.

Totally unrelated upcoming events:

If you’re in the Iowa creative corridor (Cedar Rapids/Iowa City area), come to ICON41 this weekend! Erin Casey and I have an awesome session lined up on worldbuilding, 4-6 PM on Saturday. Also, feel free to say hi on the NaNoWriMo site next month: I’m AlexPenname.

They’re all the same damn person. White-bread moral paragons of virtue who all follow in the footsteps of Luke Skywalker, pacing through the Hero’s Journey like it’s a track ride at Disneyland. Yes, they have quirks and quandaries that make them their own person, but overall they fit a stereotype. Even well-rounded, well-formed heroes just seem to pale in comparison to their surrounding cast.

I’m just not a fan.

I’m not just hating on heroes to be edgy, I promise. This is grounded in proper literary analysis. Namely, the white-bread moral paragons of virtue are a subset of what I hope is a fading literary trend: The Everyman.

This is how to avoid falling into that trap.

Definition: Make Them Boys Go Loco

The Everyman is a fairly well-known concept. He’s the reader’s insight into the world of the novel. He’s usually male, usually white, usually of average intelligence. Sometimes he has trouble with girls, to give him some depth. He’s Arthur Dent, Dr. Watson, John Carter, Luke Skywalker. The ultimate Relatable Character: everyone can put themselves in his shoes, because he doesn’t have a foot to stand on. He’s the sense of normalcy in an otherwise-turbulent world. Overwhelmed by the personalities of other characters, sure, but a safe place to retreat to when necessary.

Everymen are rarely gay, rarely female, rarely people of color (notable exception: women’s 19th-century British literature, where they were also frequently women of stature). They’re cis, they’re usually of an ambiguous political or religious party, they aren’t familiar with moral gray areas or mental illness. And frankly, they’ve served a pretty decent historical purpose in Western literature.

They make things accessible.

There’s nothing wrong with that. Accessibility is an essential element of a novel, and an Everyman is great at keeping the impulse of infodumping at bay. But the voice of diversity is getting louder, and we’re finding it’s a lot harder to dump all your readers into one category.

Avoiding the Blank Slate

There’s a fantastic way to avoid this, and I’ve seen it happening more and more: rather than giving readers one character that they’re “supposed” to relate to, give readers a spectrum of characters to choose from. Not in the sense of token minorities (keep your populations realistic and natural) but in the sense of fleshing out everyone. Not just the supporting cast.

People can’t get enough of this right now. I’m in the process of sending out my 2014 NaNoWriMo to agents, and the one thing I’m seeing consistently is a request for diverse characters.

This is the thing.

I’ve never met an ordinary person. Not once in my life. I’ve only ever seen them in books or on television, in this trope, and it is the least-accessible thing on the face of the planet. I don’t want to read about someone who didn’t really exist before the story started–seriously, Arthur Dent? His only bits of backstory have to do with meeting supporting characters!–and I don’t want to read about someone who has the same internal dialogue as every other main character the author’s ever written.

In short: if you want to make your characters relatable, make them unique. If you want to make your characters unique, make them diverse.

Disclaimer/Shameless Promotion!

This blog post is brought to you by brainstorming for The Violet Realm with the indomitable Erin Casey. If you’re in the Iowa City area, we meet up every 2nd and 4th Tuesday of the month at the Iowa City Public Library and talk about science fiction/fantasy writing! We’re a subcommunity of the Iowa Writers’ House, which is an amazing nonprofit dedicated to connecting writers in Iowa. Check it out and sign up for the newsletter: we do a ton of awesome stuff.

]]>https://alexpenland.wordpress.com/2016/09/28/the-blank-slate/feed/0abpenlandThe Conflict-Driven Plothttps://alexpenland.wordpress.com/2016/06/01/the-conflict-driven-plot/
https://alexpenland.wordpress.com/2016/06/01/the-conflict-driven-plot/#respondThu, 02 Jun 2016 02:46:11 +0000http://alexpenland.wordpress.com/?p=1242As I’m editing through The Thrilling Adventures of Clara Delaney I’m asking myself a lot of questions. What works? What doesn’t work? What should I do for the next book? Overall it’s a pretty solid story, but where are the weak points?

My biggest difficulty: conflict.

I am perfectly happy watching my characters sit around and get drunk or talk for the entire book, which does not make for entertaining reading. This is troublesome for someone who wants to write space adventures.

So here are some ideas for creating conflict. And a lot of questions to ask yourself when you need to push a change in plot.

Know Their Motivation

Your characters will not always be on the same side, and that goes a lot deeper than the usual “good VS evil” dichotomy that most genre fiction is so fond of. An antagonist worth reading about isn’t just motivated by being evil– they need a reason. The same goes for a hero: doing good for the sake of good is boring.

So think about what drives them, from their day-to-day needs to their overarching narrative. Conflict arises naturally when two heroes find themselves at cross-purposes, not when a hero and a villain clash.

I don’t really believe in villains.

Know Their Background

Cultural values, privilege, personal history: everything that makes a person who they are is a source for conflict. What do your characters value? How can it be endangered? What do they fear? How can you make that happen?

Change Them

Taking the previous point deeper: how can you change those values? How can you challenge them? How do you want your characters to change over the course of the story and what’s going to cause that?

A lot of this is just basic characterization stuff, but if you’re a character-driven writer, as I am, this is how you form your plot. Put people at odds, force them to find a solution, and watch how they grow.

The people were phenomenal, the sessions and panels were a huge education, and the speakers-slash-presenters were amazingly friendly. Wendy Corsi Straub (@WendyCorsiStaub) said in her keynote speech that this business is a roller coaster, and she wasn’t kidding. The whole weekend (while phenomenal) was definitely a rolling tide of hills and valleys for me.

Good Things I Learned:

Networking is not a difficult thing to do. Hang out at the bar, be nice to people, buy an agent a drink if you get the chance.

Pacing is also not a difficult thing to do. I went to several sessions that talked about story structure, and it’s fairly simple: find a structure that works for you and write out your plot points to fit it.

Characterization? Easy peasy. Secondary characters need a simple arc and a recognizable trait. Primary characters need motivation and you gotta watch where that motivation changes throughout the plot.

Setting? Make a lot of maps. Visit a lot of places.

Querying agents? Do your research, treat them like people, and have a good book. If you find one who loves your work as much as you do, hold on and don’t let go.

Tough Lessons I Learned:

You know what’s really, really hard? Doing all of that stuff with a million other things going on while still earning a living. Oh my god, it sucks. It’s so hard.

We listened to a keynote speech by Jeff-goddamn-Lindsay (ever heard of Dexter?) and he told us all about how no, he still didn’t feel like he’d “made it”, he still had a mortgage to pay. And that no, most of us probably wouldn’t “make it”, but we’d keep writing anyway, because what the hell else are we supposed to do with this internal drive to tell stories?

We can’t not.

And that hit me hard. Not just Jeff Lindsay’s speech (which was actually incredibly inspirational and literally drove me to tears), but the whole pervasive sense of future. That even if (read: when) I “make it” there’s still this uphill battle to have your voice be heard. That even Kevin J. Anderson, with 50+ bestsellers and a personal relationship with his childhood heroes under his belt, cannot always sell an amazing book.

There’s no such thing as “making it”. I think a lot of us feel like you get an agent, they whisk you away to stardom, and you live happily ever after. And that’s just not the case.

Which is probably sort of a childish realization, but it made me cry. Not because my hopes and dreams were crushed– quite the opposite, actually. This weekend it hit me that even knowing all that, even dealing with all that shit, this is my dream anyway.

God damn it, this is what I chose to do. And I will love every snotty, teary, incoherent crying session I have in a hotel room, because it is part of the journey.

And I love the freaking journey.

Highlights:

I met amazing people. Like, a lot of amazing people. Jousters. Forensics experts. Paralegals. One actual legitimate witch. Other freaking writers. We supported each other emotionally, we gave each other honest criticism, we exchanged cards. We told stories.

An author I was reading with complimented the voice in my writing.

One of the author’s young daughter gave my friend and I a wonderful elevator pitch– and even let us read her story.

I met amazing people.

An agent asked me to send her a query. She loved my book idea.

Erin and I passed out Iowa Writers’ House information to most of the speakers, and they all sounded incredibly excited to come lead workshops– more information on that to follow if you sign up for the IWH newsletter.

Those of you who know me personally know the reason the blog’s been on hold for a couple weeks: I recently started my first Actual Grown-up Job (with a desk and everything), I’ve been doing a ton of work with the Iowa Writers’ House and I’ve been editing The Thrilling Adventures of Clara Delaney to try and hit 85,000 words before I start doing a serious bout of querying.

Anyway. Here’s more information on all that stuff.

Iowa Writers’ House:This is a shameless plug for an awesome organization. The IWH is a group of writers located primarily in the Iowa City area (but currently doing work throughout the entire Creative Corridor, and aiming to work with the entire state) that work together to create an amazing creative community. We have workshops with amazing writers (one just finished up with Sabata Mokae), social events with other area writers in Iowa City landmarks, and the Rooms.

The Rooms are awesome. They’re communities of writers within a genre that get together and write, discuss aspects of their work, or just get to know each other. So far we have two established Rooms: the Great Green Room (children’s literature, hosted by an awesome group of ladies that include published authors Sarah Prineas and Delia Ray) and the Violet Realm (sci-fi and fantasy, hosted by the awesome Erin Casey and myself).

Twice a month, the Violet Realm gets together to listen to a short lecture about some aspect of writing sci-fi and fantasy. It’s either facilitated by a member of the community or one of the hosts– we’ve had talks on fight scenes, conlanging (guess who facilitated that one), mapmaking, and a ton more.

If you’re in Iowa, check us out. The Violet Realm meets every second and fourth Tuesday of the month in the Iowa City Public Library, room B. Everyone’s welcome!

Things are settling down, so the blog’s back in business! I’m afraid #livetweetbooks is on an indefinite hiatus, though. Between IWH, a 9-5 job, and working on actually writing, I don’t really have the time to carve out anymore– so it’s going on the backburner of fun ideas. It may come back to life if I find a really good book to talk about. I’ll still probably be posting reviews now and again.

Writing:

I’m planning on starting the beta-reading process for The Thrilling Adventures of Clara Delaney at the end of the month: once I get it up to 85,000 words I’m going to consider it in the final draft stage. Which means I’m looking for beta readers for both the query letter and the manuscript, starting in May.

Also in May (after the 17th) I’ll be looking for beta readers for a poetry chapbook. I’ve spent the last couple years compiling poems I’ve written from… well, kindergarten, up to my poem-a-day challenges the past few years. Thinking of calling it Quarter-Life Crisis, although that’s a work in progress.

Last thing: I’ll be at the Pike’s Peak Writing Conference next week! Check it out here. The events look amazing and registration is still open, go check it out.

Job:

I’m working 9-5 at an actual job now and I’m pretty sure all the stuff on my desk cost at least half of what I made last year, if not more. The people are awesome and the job is interesting and it’s very surreal. We have a team-building exercise planned. And a water cooler.

I hear this term everywhere. Guys ask it in writing forums. Women complain about it every time a new movie or series comes out. It drives me up a goddamn wall: why is the “realistic female character” such a challenge? Why is it such a standard to live up to? Is the gender dichotomy so ingrained in our systems that men and women are truly from different planets?

(And for that matter, why did someone who created an amazing, in-depth, thought-out world not bother to give a little thought to gender roles?)

Okay, yes, Burroughs was a product of his time. And I love the John Carter series, because I’m a sucker for adventure stories and good worldbuilding. But Edgar, this one’s for you.

Pass the Bechdel Test.

For those still unfamiliar with this test, it’s a simple series of questions that determines the realism of your Strong Female Characters.

Are there at least two women characters in the film?

Who talk to each other?

About something other than a man?

Lots of wonderful, well-crafted, vivacious worlds do not pass the Bechdel Test. Lord of the Rings is a particularly well-written offender, as is the original Star Wars trilogy. Also much (although not all!) of Shakespeare’s work. You do not need to pass the Bechdel Test for your work to be an excellent read.

That said, this is the easiest way to write Realistic Female Characters you can possibly manage to put in a novel and the fact that the questions have to be asked in the first place is so sad it’s downright funny. Want to have realistic women in your book? There are probably more than one of them, since we make up roughly 50% of the population. Since there are just so many women in the world, I bet they talk to each other sometimes. And they probably have their own shit going on in their lives.

I mean… duh.

Give her (them!) a subplot.

Not every main character in the world has to be female. But if every one of your characters has something else going on besides the token girl, whose subplot is falling hopelessly in love with your main character, you’re doing something wrong.

Yes, for some people romance is all-inclusive and consuming. Yes, your main female character may have an all-consuming passionate desire for your male character. Shit happens. It’s your world. In that case, though, I have some advice for your main character:

Run, bro.

A romance that takes over your whole life is unhealthy. It makes for great drama, sure (see: every sitcom ever invented) but it’s lazy. It never ends in happy-ever-afters. Unless you’re gonna really have fun with that trope, avoid it at all costs lest your female readers throw your book violently at your face.

Plus, it’s lazy writing. If you’re going to bother having unique secondary characters, make them interesting! They need a purpose. Don’t just put in a token girl for the hell of it.

Put some effort into your romantic subplots, if you have them.

This one is SPECIFICALLY directed at Edgar Rice Burroughs, although I’m well aware his works have long since passed into the public domain. Dude, limit your romantic interactions! Holy shit, John Carter is apparently sporting some sort of super-pheromone, because every single woman on Mars falls in love with him.

What. Edgar. Why.

Yes, romance is fun to read, but only if the chemistry is organic. Only if the characters actually like each other.

I admit I have a hard time with this one, personally. As my girlfriend can tell you, I’m awful at romantic dialogue when I’m actually in the relationship (I call her “nerd” far more than I call her “sweetheart” or “honey”), so writing natural romantic dialogue is a challenge to me. I get it.

Just give your characters at least a couple chapters (or a few hours, Edgar) to get to know each other before they try to jump each others’ bones, okay?

When all else fails, ask a girl.

Women come at the world from a different perspective than men. Guys may not understand why telling someone to smile is a degrading, annoying thing: any chick in the world can tell you exactly how infantilizing it is, and we’ve all had someone say it. Same goes for unsolicited compliments. Or unsolicited chivalry. Or any other form of microaggressive behaviour.

Unless you’ve been on the receiving end, you probably don’t understand the problem to its fullest extent. So sit down with someone you know and ask questions. Let her talk. I guarantee you she’ll be more than willing to help you understand.

Go back and switch the genders of this article. It still applies.

Or replace “girl” with “person of color”. Or “lgbt person”. Or even “child”.

This article was fueled by the freaking oversight that is A Princess of Mars, but it really applies to anything you write that falls outside the realm of your experience. Twilight is just as awful as A Princess of Mars, and for all the same reasons (although Twilight doesn’t have any of APoM’s good bits, like war and worldbuilding).

There’s a reason I don’t have many people of color in my stories– I’m not a person of color. That’s something I’m working on changing, but it’s hard not to fall into the Token Black Friend trope. Same thing happens with kids in adult literature– usually only present to be in distress or show the main character what he’s fighting for. And the gay people never get a realistic romantic story arc.

Gender isn’t a person’s defining characteristic, even if it’s a big part of who they are. Same goes for sexuality. Skin color. Ethnicity. Whatever.

Write people. Not tropes, not characters, not daydreams.

People.

]]>https://alexpenland.wordpress.com/2016/03/16/realistic-female-characters/feed/0abpenlandForgiveness.https://alexpenland.wordpress.com/2016/03/01/forgiveness/
https://alexpenland.wordpress.com/2016/03/01/forgiveness/#commentsTue, 01 Mar 2016 23:11:49 +0000http://alexpenland.wordpress.com/?p=1102Various events over the past few years have caused me to think a lot on the nature of forgiveness. My best friend abandoned me in a time of need. There have been various family falling-outs since then that it’s hard for me to get past. I’ve been working through my trust issues while in a long-term relationship, which is a lot harder than romantic comedies make it seem.

Forgiveness, to me, is the simple act of moving on from an act of hurt and ceasing to harbor resentment.

Forgiveness, to me, cannot be truly granted until a person stops learning from that hurt.

The difficult part is understanding when you’re only harboring anger, and have nothing left to learn from the topic.

Trust is a difficult thing for me.

The events that surrounded me when I started this blog made sure of that. After all, my entire nuclear family collapsed in the span of a week. My parents announced their divorce, my best friend informed me that he no longer had a use for me, and my aunts– who I’d called my second parents in high school– took him in, effectively (if temporarily) severing our relationship.

That shit takes its toll on a person. But it’s been over a year. I’ve changed due to those experiences, and for the better.

I know that I want to be the type of person who made the mistakes that I made: I would rather be trusting than cynical, and I’d make the mistake again of trusting someone to be a friend. I would rather risk a broken heart than shut out friendships. I would rather have boundaries than get sucked into interpersonal drama: I love my parents dearly but refuse to be their mediator. I will no longer put up with toxic people: meaning I will not make the mistake of being friend to someone who cannot put as much heart and soul into the friendship as I do.

These are good lessons. They help to shape me into the person I want to be– and to my surprise, I’m rapidly becoming that person. So what else do I have to learn?

At what point do you stop learning and start just resenting? Being angry? Holding onto your hurt because you don’t want to grant the other person forgiveness, even though they’re never actually going to be aware of your choice?

I don’t really have the answers yet. I’m still learning. I’m still figuring this out. I can say this: I’m not there yet. The fact that it’s got me thinking about the matter shows that I do, in fact, still have things to learn.

But I want to be the person who knows when it is over, and when to move on.

]]>https://alexpenland.wordpress.com/2016/03/01/forgiveness/feed/1abpenlandConlang Lite: The Language Facadehttps://alexpenland.wordpress.com/2016/02/18/conlang-lite-the-language-facade/
https://alexpenland.wordpress.com/2016/02/18/conlang-lite-the-language-facade/#respondThu, 18 Feb 2016 21:59:16 +0000http://alexpenland.wordpress.com/?p=986Language is a passion of mine. Specifically, conlanging is a passion of mine. The nuts and bolts of how words fit together is fascinating to me: I have literally spent hours coming up with language concepts.

But it’s not for everyone. Which I totally get. Most writers are in this for the story, not because they’re weirdly obsessed with letters. In which case, those who want to address the problem of language might feel a little overwhelmed: it’s a huge complicated worldbuilding monster that can often appear like an all-or-nothing deal.

Don’t worry. You can have a realistic language without having to build the whole damn thing. Here’s how:

First, come up with how your language sounds. Second, come up with some words. Third, come up with how you’re gonna name things. Really, it’s that easy.

But I’ll go into more detail.

Phonology

Most writers have been members of the “hit the keyboard and see what happens” school of conlanging at least once in their life. Honestly, that school doesn’t get as much credit as it deserves: for barely-mentioned languages or a place to start it’s totally valid. Hell, they used it in Star Trek for the first season.

The problem comes up when you have more than a few phrases or names in the language, and the reader will start picking up on the fact that you’re just smashing your forehead into your laptop. The easiest way to delay that realization for as long as possible is to sit down and pick out five letters.

Three consonants, two vowels.

You can combine these letters however you want. It’ll sound much more genuine, and it’ll give different languages different flavors. For example, let’s make two phonologies right now. I’ll mash the keyboard for the vowels, then the consonants.

You can vary this, of course: choose only one vowel, or all vowels, or try to use all consonants (which sounds grating but works). As long as you keep the sounds consistent throughout the language, it’ll sound like an actual language. Which is what you’re going for.

If you want to do absolutely nothing else for your world’s language, do this.

Vocabulary

But do you really need to stop there? Once you have the phonology, making up words is easy. The hard part is deciding what words you need to make first. The best way to answer, of course, is to write the book and figure out what you need to “translate” in dialogue, but there are a couple things to think about if you want to.

First, language is in many ways a representation of the culture that speaks it. If you have any unique concepts or titles this is a good place to start. This can also extend to concepts that are important to the culture: are they nature-loving hippies or warmongers? They may have words to encompass those values that you choose to use for later in the story.

Second, every language has swear words and every bilingual person in the world reverts to their home tongue when they want to curse. Not only does this offer a great semi-censorship for young adult writers (I’m looking at you, Eoin Colfer) but it gives you a chance to think about what they’d curse about. Swear words are strong words, so put some thought into them.

Example: in English cultures, sex and excretions are taboo. They tend to make up most of our cursing. You’ll notice in subculture that lesser derogatory words tend to circle around perceived bad qualities: terms like “tree hugger” or “corporate pig”.

So what in your language would they consider so filthy that only it can encompass the sheer pain of a stubbed toe or gullible moment? What trait makes a person the lowest of the low and can only be used in a moment of anger or betrayal?

Third, and probably most usefully, you need to think about names.

Naming Conventions

This is the most intricate suggestion for creating the facade of a language, but it’s probably my favorite. Names are also powerful words, and they’re probably going to be the most frequent use of different languages you’ll see in a novel. The best names have meaning behind them, be that influence from a person (“Virginia” or “Jamestown”), influenced by other tongues (“Philadelphia”), or even just a cultural relevance (“Los Angeles”).

The best way to fudge this is to come up with a theme for each culture. Do they name their cities after geographical locations? Do they name people after virtues? Do their surnames come from their parents or are there family names?

To use an example, let’s use the languages from the previous section. In Language A, they name their cities after geographical locations. We’ll say the word “sosa” means “river”, the word “ta” means “two”, and the word “tos” means “bank.” That’s enough to name three towns on the same river.

Our hero could be raised in Tososa, “Riverbank”, and travel downstream to Sosata, “Two Rivers” to trade. Maybe various events lead him to Tatos, a trading town called Two Banks. Three named cities, and we instantly have an idea of what they look like: a sleepy river village, a town at a split in the riverbed, and maybe a delta-side trading post.

In Language B, they name their children after virtues. The culture values oratory skills and cleverness, so we’ll say “pir” means “eloquence”, “ki” means “to speak”, and “ruk” means “something unexpected”. We can come up with names: “Pirki” or “eloquent speaker”, or “Ruki”, “unexpected speaker”. Or my favorite, “Rukpir”, “unexpected eloquence”.

Literally just assigning meaning to sounds in a way that fits your story: it takes ten minutes of thought. But your names gain depth.

Shameless Plug

If this sort of thing interests you (and you’re in Iowa City), I’m currently co-hosting writing sessions with the awesome Erin Casey that go into this stuff in depth. They’re called the Violet Realm (under the auspices of the Iowa Writers’ House). We have amazing discussions about writing techniques, try prompts that help reinforce the theme of the day, and generally enjoy writing in the company of other awesome people.

We meet up in the Iowa City Public Library (room B) every second and fourth Tuesday of the month to talk about writing. The sessions are geared toward fantasy and science fiction writers.